Athlete Lab Virtual Studio

What fills your cup when you go out for a run?

To some, its views, nature, the outdoors. To others, it’s community, being social, feeling connected to others through a shared experience. And to some, it’s the physical challenge of it, the beating heart, the panting breath, the standing at the top of the hill or end of a track and knowing you were capable of doing hard things.

For me, most of the time, it’s my time to disconnect a little. To spend time with myself. To think. Or not think. To work through things I didn’t realize I needed to work through. To focus on something simple aside from work and relationships and the complexity of being a human adult. I’ve always maintained my view that running is not therapy. Therapy is therapy. But to me, it sure can be therapeutic.

If you can’t be yourself, what’s the point?

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. But I’ve learned over time that in business and in life, authenticity matters and it’s more important to attract the people who value you than try to chase the people who can’t appreciate what you bring to the table.

Thanks for always capturing the realness. 📸

Continuing education lately:
UESCA training and cert ✔️
Yoga Medicine Myofascial Release module (in progress)
Anatomy Trains knee dissection livestream (this Friday)

Plus, I’ve been deep diving lately in a few specific areas and movement patterns and I swear, if you’re doing it right, the learning never stops. ✌🏼

I hope I can swing another in person cadaver dissection next spring. Who’s going to join me?!

📸

Taylor Swift Versa party 🎉 💚 for ‘s birthday. Thanks to for the early morning butt kicking.

Also, photo 3: caption that 🤣

📸: thanks for the photo! I still can’t believe you took a back to back to back! 🥵

Some days, you’re only a singular and myopic version of yourself. The runner. The wife. The mom. The best friend. The intellect. The model employee. The outdoorsy gal. The guy in the fast car. Whatever. And other days, it’s more complex.

You’re going to be a million versions of yourself by the time this life is over (if you’re lucky) and what I’ve learned is to embrace all aspects of yourself at all times. Embrace the season you’re in and try to match what you’re putting out in the world with what you authentically feel on the inside. That’s all we can do as people who have as many dimensions as a prism and are just trying to do their best out there.

I’m doing my best too. My identity is so wrapped up various things, sometimes I feel like that’s all I am. It’s been confusing but nice these last few months to bring myself back to revisit prior versions of myself. They’re all flawed, don’t get me wrong, but they remind me that one always has the freedom to change how they view themselves and how the world views them.

As you all know I’ve taken a tiny step back from a few things business-wise but don’t worry. I’m not gone. Just was out of office for a while. ✌🏼

Running into the weekend like ✌🏼

We are all just doing the best we can.

As athletes, as professionals, as parents, as friends, as citizens, as homeowners, as caretakers, as people. It’s all you can ask of yourself. Try your hardest, do your best. Sometimes you’ll fail and fail spectacularly and at that point, hope you can use it as an opportunity for growth and learning. Because you’ll also succeed just as often even though it doesn’t always feel like it. And at the end of the day, life won’t be about a balance sheet of successes and failures, but rather the quality of your life, the moments you hold on to and the person you become in the process.

I’ve been thinking so much about personal growth lately and how running has truly taught me some of my best life lessons — how to be resilient, but also when to find balance how to find compassion for yourself and kindness to others. The community that I surround myself with is family, to an extent. And the person I’ve become through being an athlete is something I’ll carry on long after I stop lacing up my shoes and pinning on bibs.

When I teach you in my classes or I coach you as a runner, the immediate goal is to improve your performance, keep you injury free and make sure you find joy in the process of training. But the long term goal is always that you take from it a sense of self and know that running is something you hopefully really like but it doesn’t define you. It’s something you can be really good at, or maybe just mediocre at but reach goals and feel fulfilled by that. I want you to learn about hip strength, functional mobility, and heart rate zones and all that stuff. But I also hope you learn something about yourself as well. And if you did that, then both I and running did our job well enough.

In running, do your best against the backdrop of human imperfection and know that’s pretty much the same for life.

📸 .bers

Time is the longest distance between two places.

Three and a half more months till we get this party started for the 7th time 🎉🌵💀

I’ve been taking a bit of a break from online teaching to focus a little more on life this spring and summer. As most of you know, it’s been hectic, full of travel, full of caretaking and full of stress. And it’s not over yet.

But it’s not all bad. I’ve been able to have a little more freedom to have fun. To show up in person to other people in my life, to hop in a car and drive 8 hours to see a race in person. To free up time in my schedule to finish up some continuing education. I even somehow managed to squeeze in another photo shoot with .bers 🥰.

All this to say, thank you for giving me space to be a little less present in the Virtual Studio lately. Thank you for giving me permission to be a little messy.

The good news is, I’m coming back! Breakfast Club will happen this month (stay tuned) and we will have all new content released in August along with live schedules. Sometimes we take a step back to gain perspective. See you all on the mat soon. ✌🏼

Friday Night Lights ✨ of a different kind. But still 💙✌🏼

Stay gold

Sometimes we don’t realize how lucky we actually are.

I was going to post something vulnerable and personal about how I’ve been feeling lately about running, training and life. How things have been pretty hard and I’ve been doing my best to not feel like a complete failure at times. And then how sometimes I’ve even been failing at that. How this feels like a season of my life where dealing with being human is a struggle and it’s hard enough just processing life so training is completely on the backburner. Because I know most of us have been there — highs and lows, ebbs and flows — and it doesn’t feel revolutionary to say it aloud. I work every day with clients that struggle through a big dose of life happening to them and running and training feels like the least of their concerns. It happens to the best of us.

But I’m doing this thing now where no matter how life is going, I’m looking at it through a lens of gratitude. So instead of posting all that other feeling sorry for myself stuff right now (don’t worry, it may come later), I’m just reminding myself how darn lucky I am in so many other ways. And I just have to wait for this set of waves to pass and calmer waters to greet me in the future.

PS: My trip to Western States was a blast. It did bring up a lot of feelings around the race (or the prospect of me not running it for many more years, or the fear or not getting a qualifier this year), training, my age, the changing community, etc. but all in all, I’m so glad I went and can’t wait to return next year with . Now I just need a week long nap.

Women are underrepresented in trail and ultra running and often the women’s race takes a backseat. It feels like everything is shifting in the right direction, but creating even MORE visibility is key to eventually seeing more representation, equal pay, and equal sponsorship opportunities.

Support the athletes and the creators that make space for women in this sport. Excited to be rocking this shirt all weekend long at and following some badass ladies tomorrow.

I think this weekend was a reminder that 1) your adventures don’t always go as planned 2) it’s often more important to have fun than run fast and 3) bug spray doesn’t always work 🤷🏼‍♀️

Successful second annual Bend runcation in the books with a few of my athletes and I can’t wait to do it all again next year. Follow some more of the fun .together.retreats

This is my annual public service reminder that the ability to touch your toes does not make you a better runner.

So rather than spending time in this position, try these 5 things instead

✔️overall hip mobility : our hips do get cranky as runners so introducing active range of motion drills into warm ups and morning routines helps us stay functional and feel less stuck
✔️restorative yoga as your cool down : new studies show that post run cool down stretches are usually not effective in creating lasting change in recovery rates. You know what is? Regulation of your central nervous system. Try 5 minutes of legs up the wall after a run instead of torturing yourself in a stretch.
✔️myofascial release : especially when done correctly and with a MFR ball can be extremely effective as both a warm up and a cool down/ rest day activity. When paired with mobility or light stretches, it allows more functional movement and a greater range of motion.
✔️take walk breaks : sitting for a long period of time really causes a host of issues for all people but especially runners. Taking breaks to move your legs, get your hips in extension, etc, will serve you way better than a post work stretch.
✔️ nerve flossing : if you have pain running down the back of your leg/ hamstring or even low back, consider sciatic nerve flossing instead of straight up stretching alone.

There are so many factors that come into play when we talk about flexibility v mobility or flexibility v functional range. We as a society get caught up on flexibility. But as an athlete, we have to remember that our sport specific adaptations might have us feeling stiffer at points and that’s not always a bad thing. Usually it’s a sign that the body is going through changes to help you do what you do often, better.

So instead of focusing on touching your toes (thanks Presidential Fitness Tests we all took in elementary school 🙄) focus on how to strengthen and mobilize to create healthy, resilient functional movement patterns for running.

watermelon sugar high 🍉 🩷 🍓
You brave souls in my advanced this week KILLED it. Keep it up and I’ll see you in 2 weeks ✌🏼

Thanks for a 💣 🔥 class. Taking then teaching is my (second) favorite kind of double double 🍔

Found an old photo of Chris and I at the prime of our trail running days on one of my favorite trails. I posted a few photos around that same time period with captions speaking to how I was striving to be faster and stronger and better with training.

While I could look back at those posts and feel remorseful for the changes I have undergone as a runner over the last 6 years, instead I actually feel content. Because if I was going to post something today, it wouldn’t be about getting faster, stronger, better. It would be about running happier and healthier. The truth is, I’m still reaching PR’s. I’m still achieving goals. I’m still running long and finding new ways to challenge myself. I’m a completely different runner. Or maybe the same runner but with a different mindset. Either way, I think 36 year old Jenny would be pretty proud of 42 year old Jenny and the stuff I still get to do even when training isn’t going perfectly.

Sometimes I think we focus on our results of training or races as the thing that matters the most. But in the end, it’s how we view ourselves in the frame of those results of training or races that matters, not the results themselves. It only took a bazillion years for me to let the rest of that stuff go. And an old photo to remind me of it during a challenging time.

May all your miles bring smiles. 🎉🏃🏻‍♀️🏃🏼‍♀️

Happy Global Running Day. Throwing it back to chasing waterfalls at the Portland Funcation last week.

Spent the long weekend chasing waterfalls with my athletes. Follow .together.retreats for more pics and deets on upcoming events.

Back on the mic Tuesday and Thursday 9/10 stepping in for and Wednesday for my normal time slots at 8:15/9:20 all levels and 10:30 advanced 🌶️. Then not teaching till June!

You know the deal, be there or be sad.

I break this very unintentional moment of IG silence to bring you a random memory from this day 5 years ago.

To all my yoga friends back in the day … IYKYK
Tuesdays 6:15pm and Thursdays 4:30pm. You knew where to find us. ❤️

The thing about burnout is we often don’t know we have it until we’ve reached a breaking point. It takes a lot of self awareness and perspective to recognize the red flags early AND to choose to course correct by pushing past self and societal pressure to keep going down that path.

People assume that because I preach about this stuff all the time that I must be immune. Or at least a bonafide expert in applying it to my own life. But I’m human. I’m a work in progress and I’m imperfect in a lot of ways and managing my time and energy levels is one of them. Setting boundaries and regulating how far I am willing to extend myself is another. And of course the ever popular saying yes when I should be saying no. I’m getting better at asking for help — even if it makes me feel like I’m shifting my burden on those who might be on burnout themselves by helping me.

The last 2 weeks. But really the last 4 months but really the last year or more has been so draining. I haven’t taken a huge break in training. I’ve taken on more work responsibilities. We’ve undertaken home projects, I’ve traveled a ton and the emotional toll of Henry’s death, plus the health issues in my own family, and even joyous things like fostering and adopting dogs have all contributed to feeling like I am running on fumes. Sleep has been poor. My attitude has been crappy and I haven’t been the best friend or partner or coach lately. Though I’m trying all the time, I’m spread too thin. I’m becoming resentful of the speed that life is going. And frustrated with myself that I’m the one pushing the gas pedal.

It’s so hard to feel like we have no one to blame but ourselves. So I’m trying this new thing where there is no blame, just solutions. I’m burned out. The whodunnit is less important than the what are we gonna do about it. So that’s where I am. Figuring it out.

I have always considered myself a pessimist because I don’t like to be disappointed so expecting the worst allows you to be right or just pleasantly surprised. But I’m starting to think I have more optimist in me after all because at the end of the day, I do have hope that it will all work out.

This is me being transparent.

1. I bit a chunk out of the side of my tongue and it hurts like a b*tch

2. After Gorge, my quads were just shot. I underestimated how much they were deactivated and I was walking Zelda when she pulled me and I couldn’t brace myself. Something didn’t feel right in my knee after that point (which was the day I got back from Gorge). Since then I’ve been resting, walking, doing strength work,going to PT, getting massage and localized cryo treatments and have even done 2 contrast therapy sessions. I’ve rested and retested my knee several times and while the pain is very low on the pain scale, I still don’t know what it will feel like to run a full 62 miles of 12,000 feet of gain and descent on it.

I haven’t been “injured” to the point where is affects my running since 2018. I’m pretty proud of that fact as an over 40 athlete, running more and better miles than I was 20 years ago. But sometimes things happen and they’re inevitable. You bit your tongue some days while chewing gum and driving from the airport. You walk the dog and pull something. It was a wake up call that I could be doing more to keep myself healthy. I already do a lot but as I age and expect myself to perform to the same level as I once did, I know it’s going to require even more vigilance.

Tomorrow, I’m supposed to run Miwok 100k. I’ve trained diligently for it merging my training blocks from Javelina, Coldwater, Black Canyon and Gorge into something solid. The last three weeks have been rough on me and I truthfully don’t know whether I’ll start, I don’t know whether I’ll finish. I’m giving myself permission to do what I think is right in that moment and remember that running is just running. It’s not life and death. It’s something we do for fun. And if my body isn’t up to the task tomorrow, I’m not going to beat myself up about it any more than I already have.

On a personal note, my Grandmother had a stroke late last week. So I’ll be flying from CA to FL to be with her after the race and it puts a lot of things in perspective that while running can feel defining at times, there is always life happening in the background, which is often way more important.

fam 💚

Heading out of town for a race this weekend then heading to Florida ☀️ to visit family so you might not see me on the schedule for a while but fear not, I’ll be back for classes on 5/10. In the meantime, catch me tomorrow (Wed May 1st 8:15/9:20 all levels and 10:30 for a spice level 5 advanced class). On Friday May 10th I’ll be teaching the 8:15/9:20 all levels and 1:30 advanced subbing for Jenny W. Please give my subs a lot of love and really fast transitions while I’m gone.

Athlete Lab Virtual Studio members— live and on demand offerings for May will be released soon so stay tuned.

Planning Athlete Lab Virtual Studio content for May!

Vote in stories for what you want to see or DM me/ comment below.

On deck

Friday 4/26 9:20 all levels
Wednesday 5/1 8:15 and 9:20 all levels , 10:30 advanced

Next week for the advanced, the leg block will focus on heavy pushing moves, and always a few combo surprises. See all of you advanced boys and baddies soon ✌🏼

“On Earth, there is no Heaven, but there are pieces of it”. Happy Earth Day — be good to your mama today and every day 🌏

Let’s get to work 💚💪🏽

The first official Advanced Lagree class is on deck for this Wednesday 10:30 .

There will likely be a few instructors taking class alongside clients which is amazing because they will be great examples of alignment, how slow we expect you to move and how fast your transitions should be.

And trust me, they’re right there with you, wanting to put their knees down, take a break, take a spring off. And they’re human so they might. 🤷🏼‍♀️ You might too. That’s ok, no one is asking you to be perfect. We are just asking you to be brave enough to try to take it up a notch and have faith enough that you can do more than you think you can.

You’re going to get to share space with some of the strongest and experienced men and women at the studio (instructors as well as fellow clients) and that’s a pretty special thing. You’ll get to do moves you’ve never done in a Lagree class before and you’ll probably surprise yourself at how much you can challenge yourself in that environment. Iron sharpens iron, after all. It is going to make you stronger and more mindful of your movement in ALL your Lagree classes.

Waitlists are full for 4/10 but there’s still space in 4/17 10:30 with me and 4/19 1:30 with Jenny W.

The hype is real. Join us for the party. If you have questions or concerns about whether the advanced format is for you, don’t hesitate to reach out via DM or ask me in person sometime.

Did you know that the universe might implode if you let your knee go over your toes in a lunge? 😬

Obviously kidding. Every time we run, or walk up or down a hill or stairs, our knees go forward of our ankles and often times, our toes. When we go into a deep squat, they do as well. The ankles dorsiflex hundreds of times in a day for different reasons. Our knees bear our weight in a single leg position many times without a perfect vertical shin.

For runners, it’s important to be aware of this movement pattern and to not shy away from training it. We must focus on weight bearing in this position because in running (and trail running), we are putting those demands on the body over and over again, but with impact too.

YES doing this in lunge movements without intention will put stresses on tibial torsion and more demand on the quad (which might not be your focus). YES your ankle and lower leg might put restrictions on your ability to do this movement pattern in functional range of motion (those ROM issues should be addressed first and movements can be modified to accommodate for those with ankle restrictions) BUT none of these should mean that this movement pattern is off limits.

One of the things that drives me nuts about the yoga modality is this strict notion that the knee can’t travel forward or you’re doing it wrong. The intentions behind it are fair because in most public classes, if you don’t make that a point, a lot of students will end up misaligned, not because they are trying to train that movement pattern but because they don’t know what they’re doing. And repetitive “wonkiness” MIGHT lead to pain, discomfort or even injury over time especially if it is coupled with other dysfunctional patterns like valgus knees, weak core, hips, feet and restricted ankles. But it can’t be the end of the story. You have to ask WHY you’re doing it.

Thats why in my yoga for runners classes, we practice classical alignment AND functional movement. It’s one of the many reasons why a tailored approach to movement is important and why I work so hard to create offerings that are framed around the “WHY” and “WHY NOT” when it comes to what you need for what you do.

Come Reset with me on Tuesday night!

While it’s normally on Mondays … we are mixing it up a little because there’s no bad time to take a Reset.

Join me at 5:15 Tuesday. We will be focusing on a little more on hip mobility this session so it will still be a great complement to your midweek runs.